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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27427144">a million mornings</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/elvenwizards/pseuds/elvenwizards'>elvenwizards</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Oxenfree (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:22:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,360</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27427144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/elvenwizards/pseuds/elvenwizards</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>how many mornings does it take to heal? loop after loop, alex searches for a way out.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alex/Jonas (Oxenfree)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a million mornings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>“<i>When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not. But soon I shall be so I cannot remember any… But the things that never happened.</i>” — Mark Twain</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When they get back into town that morning, that first morning, the five of them collapse into a booth at the Pancake House across the street from Camena’s ferry dock and order as much food as they can afford with what little cash they have in their pockets.</p><p>(It’s not much. Alex is sure she lost a few quarters somewhere between possessions, but she isn’t too keen on tracking them down. They could rot at the bottom of that ocean for all she cared.)</p><p>The waitress gives them a nasty look as they slide into her section, the only section open as it’s god awful early, butt-ass <i>I need coffee now</i> early, but none of them so much as notice, so wrapped up in the euphoria of not dying. So <i>yeah</i>, they probably look like a bunch of wrecked teenagers, tracking dirt, mud, <i>whatever</i> everywhere (god, her shoes will never look the same, she’ll probably have to throw them out—), but she could honestly care less. She could care less that she has dirt under her fingernails, or that she’s had a splinter for several hours now, or that her knee is skinned and crusted with dried blood, or that her hair is half coming down from it’s ponytail and filthy, or that she has dark circles under her eyes, or whatever else—</p><p>They’re alive. That’s what matters. It's all that matters.</p><p>They’ve already drained their coffee cups before their waitress even drags her feet back around to take their orders. Alex had forgotten how much she <i>loved</i> coffee, even the shitty Pancake House blend, until she burns her tongue drinking it too fast. The exhaustions has settled behind her eyes, but the taste of the coffee brings some relief to her tired, aching bones.</p><p>For a moment she’s able to set her thoughts aside, but she can feel them bubbling under the surface, churning uncomfortably in her stomach when it rumbles.</p><p>Their food comes a short while later, quicker than usual due to the near-emptiness of the place. Alex picks at her food, eating as much as she can stomach of almost-burnt pancakes slathered in too-sticky syrup.</p><p>“Man, I’m still hungry,” Ren says, after they’re all finished pushing their food around their plates. Alex is almost surprised Ren didn’t lick his plate clean. <i>Almost</i>.</p><p>“What? Dude, come on,” Nona says, unable to keep the amused smile from working its way across her face. She pokes him sharply in the ribs and he yelps through his laughter. “You just ate like, six pancakes and some hash browns. How are you not full?”</p><p>“That’s Ren for you,” Alex says, laughing. “Skinny as a stick but eats more than a starving dog. Especially after… well. The <i>magic</i>.”</p><p>“I think I still have some brownie left actually, now that you so conveniently mention it,” Ren hums, and reaches for his backpack. Nona slaps his hand away, and stuffs the backpack under the table near Clarissa’s feet, beyond his reach.</p><p>“Man, not this again,” Jonas says. “Enough with the brownies, dude. Seriously.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Ren says, huffing out a laugh. It’s almost sheepish. “The second one <i>was</i> a mistake. In hindsight, and all that.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jonas mimics sarcastically. “Hindsight, and all that.”</p>
<hr class="hr"/><p>(Her mother picks them up and is quick to eye their disheveled appearances with worry and disapproval; when they smile and lean on each other, half asleep in the backseat, she lets it go just as fast.)</p>
<hr class="hr"/><p>When they get home, Jonas sits on the closed lid of the toilet seat of their shared bathroom tending to his skinned knees while Alex stares at her reflection in the mirror, trying to make sense of what her existence means now, after the island, and the ghosts, and all the weirdness. Her hair hangs loosely around her face, and while it’s always been stick straight, it's tangled now worse than it’s ever been before and—is that a leaf?</p><p>“Here, sit,” Jonas says, standing. Alex slumps onto the lid after picking the leaf out of her hair and Jonas kneels in front of her with a rag. He wipes the crusted blood from her scraped knee and grimaces. She hisses in slight pain as the cloth tugs at her scabs, tightening her fingers on the rim of the closed toilet lid.</p><p>“Is it that bad?” she asks, wincing.</p><p>“It’s worse than both of mine,” he says, sitting back on his heels and examining the bloody rag in his hand. “But no, it’s not like, bad enough for stitches or anything. It might scar, though.”</p><p>“Great,” she mutters. An unwanted reminder of the horrible night to mar her skin for the rest of eternity; that was just perfect. “That’s exactly what I need. A scar. Do people still dig scars these days?”</p><p>He laughs, but she can hear the exhaustion in it. It sounds half-assed at best. She nudges his thigh with her foot, then digs her toes into his side quickly. He lets out a forced laugh and shoves her foot away. “Hey, quit that, you.”</p><p>“Are you going to shower?” Alex asks. She runs a hair through her grimy hair, and it settles over her shoulders like a disgusting curtain. “Cuz, like, I don’t think I can go another minute being this nasty.”</p><p>“Nah,” Jonas says, dismissing the idea with a wave of his hand as he gets back to his feet. “I think I’d fall over and hit my head and die or something, I’m so exhausted. You go ahead. I’m just gonna go to bed.”</p><p>“And drag all that dirt into your bed? That’s gross man, just gross You’re going to marinate in your own filth all night.”</p><p>“Ew, why would you even put it like that,” Jonas says, wrinkling his nose through a smile. “I don’t think it will kill me, anyway. I’ll wash ‘em tomorrow.”</p><p>“You sure you can sleep after all that coffee, anyway?” Alex asks. She follows him with his eyes as he hovers in the doorway for a moment.</p><p>“I guess I’m about to find out.” There’s a pause, hesitation is written all over his face. They spend a moment in silence. “Hey… Uh. So, that whole thing really sucked, but… I’m really glad we made it out. I think I’m really going to like it here.”</p><p>“I’m glad too,” she says, managing a weak smile. “See you uh, when you wake up, I guess?”</p><p>“Yeah, see you,” he says. “I guess.” </p><p>He pulls the door shut behind him and Alex listens to his heavy boots as he talks away, down the hallway, towards the attic room. His room; Michael’s room.</p><p>And then she’s alone.</p><p>She runs a hand across the back of her forehead and tries not to think. It doesn’t work too well, so she gets to work peeling her clothes off and dropping them in a pile on the floor behind the door, making a note to wash them later. The warm water of the shower is welcome after the horrors she witnessed just hours before, but standing there alone under the spray, all she can think about is just how <i>alone</i> she really is. And, well...</p><p>On the island, she bonded with Jonas. And not just the <i>gotten to know him</i> kind of bond, but the kind that made her anxious just being away from him; she’d gotten so used to him right there during the entire thing. Every time there was a loop, or she turned and he wasn’t there, she felt sick, like her stomach had turned inside out. Maybe it was some horrible need to depend on him that came out of all the bad things that happened, or some sort of need that came from the trauma, but being alone after it was all said and done… was awful. </p><p>And being together through all that… that was more than just bonding. They went through <i>everything</i> on the island, together. All of it. That’s a whole different level of being bound. Travelling through time together. Needing each other, time after time after time, after... </p><p>And now she’s alone, sitting on the bottom of the shower, letting the too-hot water sting the top of her head and run down her hair, washing the dirt down the drain. Panic rises in her throat and she tries to swallow it, breathing hard through her nose. Presses a hand to her mouth. She is not going to cry. She can’t.</p><p>They survived. They made it out.</p><p>So why does it feel like she can never really leave it behind?</p>
<hr class="hr"/><p>(She curls under the covers with still wet hair and tries not to think, presses the thoughts back down and stares at the wall. It doesn’t move, and neither does she.)</p>
<hr class="hr"/><p>Alex finds that, after everything, she can’t sleep.</p><p>Not for lack of trying, that is. Her eyelids are heavy, but every time she closes her eyes, all she can see is red; red eyes, red lights, red blood. She lays in her bed, staring up at the ceiling, the wall, anything, waiting for the bone-deep exhaustion to pull her under. But it doesn’t, and nothing comes.</p><p>She finds herself thinking of her brother. Of <i>Michael</i>. The barely healed wounds from his death are reopened; fresh. She feels like she’s 16 again, watching him drown and being unable to do anything, sitting on the shore after, alone. Her grief is no longer the settled haze of depression it had been, but now a throbbing cut. The guilt of it all overwhelms her. The sting of Clarissa’s words from hours ago rise to the surface, run through her mind again and again, until her eyes water and sting with tears.</p><p>A knock on her door startles her, and she wipes at her eyes hastily. “Uh, Come in.”</p><p>The door opens slowly, and Jonas shuffles in, wearing a new t-shirt and a pair of plaid pajama bottoms, a blanket thrown over his shoulders like a cape. If she’d been in a better mood, she would have laughed. Or made fun of him. “Hey.”</p><p>“Hey,” she says, sitting up. “What’s up?”</p><p>“Nightmare,” he says simply, but he hesitates in the doorway. His eyes look raw too. It must have been bad. He sits on the edge of her bed stiffly, by her legs, and rubs his knees through his flannel pants. “Are you… okay?”</p><p>“Yeah, I’m fine. Just can’t sleep.” <i>Liar</i>.</p><p>“Too much coffee?”</p><p>“Something like that,” she sighs, glancing out the window. The sun is high in the sky; it must be getting close to mid-afternoon, at this point. She’s lost track of time. She lays back again and pulls a pillow over her head, groaning. Jonas laughs, but it's worn and tired, weary with fresh sleep and lingering fear. </p><p>“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, pulling the pillow away from her face and hugging the pillow to her chest so she can look at him. “Your nightmare.”</p><p>The smile slips from his face, and he looks away, at the carpet. “Uh—”</p><p>“Hey, no, it’s cool. I get it. It’s fine.”</p><p>“Thanks,” he says. “Hey, do you mind if I, uh… well, okay. Can I just stay here, for like, a little? Sorry, if that’s like, weird, I just—”</p><p>“No, um, no that’s fine, yeah—” Alex says, trying not to let the relief of having company, especially the company of someone who made her feel safe through everything, show in her response. She scoots over under the covers, closer to the wall. “Just don’t get any of that dirt in my bed or you’re washing my sheets too.”</p><p>Jonas laughs, sinking down next to her on top of the covers, pulling his blanket tighter around him. “Thanks. I’m just gonna… lay here and try and go back to sleep or something.”</p><p>“Okay,” she says. “‘Night.”</p><p>He lets out an amused laugh at that, since it’s the middle of the day. “‘Night.”</p><p>He turns so that his back is facing her, and she turns away too, staring at the wall. They’re close enough to touch, backs barely pressed together; Alex can feel the muscles in his back shift as his breathing evens out. She wonders if he can feel the ridges of her spine against his. Thankfully, he doesn’t snore.</p><p>She doesn’t remember falling asleep. It feels like blinking, waking up, and when she rolls over, he’s gone, and the panic is back. It rips its way through her chest faster than she can rationalize, and it feels like she’s back on the island. She can practically hear the ghosts laughing at her, taunting her, playing with her; she’d turn, and he’d be gone, and they’d just laugh at her. They’d just laugh, and she’d call for him, and he wouldn’t be there, and they would laugh— </p><p>She buries her face in her pillow  to try and stop the tears but they come anyway, sobs and gasps coming before she can even think to try and quell them.</p><p>The door to her room opens moments later. “Alex?” The bed dips with Jonas’ weight as he sits next to her. His hand is warm on her shoulder. “Alex, what’s wrong? Are you alright?”</p><p>Her voice cracks when she speaks. “Nothing, I just… I woke up and you weren’t here and it was like—”</p><p>“Hey, it’s okay, shh,” he says, pulling her into a tight hug. She buries her face in his shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to stop the tears, but now that they’ve started, they don’t stop. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. We’re safe now, right? It’s okay.”</p><p>She fists her hands in his shirt and doesn’t let go.</p>
<hr class="hr"/><p>They don’t leave each other’s sides much after that. It’s hard to. They have some classes together, but the ones they don’t Alex spends trying and mostly failing not to have a silent panic attack in the corner. It doesn’t seem to be as bad for him, but it isn’t much better, either. She can tell by the jittery shake of his hand when they meet back up after classes, his cigarette bobbing in his hand, making a jagged pattern of smoke in the air.</p><p>Sometimes she feels eyes on her. She knows it's the other students, staring at them, whispering about them. Weirdo Alex and her weirdo step-brother, two weird peas in a weirdo pod. But sometimes, she feels the back of her neck prickling, and she can’t be sure someone, <i>something</i>, else isn't watching. </p><p>She will look over her shoulder, every now and then, but nobody is ever there.</p>
<hr class="hr"/><p>(“Hey,” she says one afternoon, not long after everything. It doesn’t feel like long. Weeks. Months. The seconds all blur together and yet it slogs on, passing like molasses but as quickly as finding a moldy sandwich in the fridge you forgot about. “Want to go to the beach? Like, right now?”</p><p>He looks at her, a question in his eyes but a cigarette on his lip. He grinds it out on the pavement and stands. “Sure.”)</p>
<hr class="hr"/><p>Jonas drives with the windows rolled down and the radio off, cigarette in hand. Sticky heat passes through the open windows, and she fans her face, thankful that she chose to wear a tank top. Her—Michael’s—red coat sits in her lap. The radio sits in its pocket, heavy and solid, like a brick in her lap.</p><p>“Why did you want to go to the beach?” Jonas asks. “I mean, without the others or anything. Like, why didn’t we do a day trip or something?”</p><p>She shrugs halfheartedly, unsure how to explain the feelings swirling in her stomach. “I dunno man, just felt like getting out of the house.”</p><p>“Tired of me already?”</p><p>“Yeah, totally, that’s why I asked you to drive. Obviously.” They laugh, and she nudges him with her elbow. It’s light and comfortable, and <i>God</i>, she misses Michael but this is good, Jonas is good; he’s comforting and fun, and she feels like she can finally <i>breathe</i>, even though—. </p><p>She swallows that thought back and closes her eyes, letting it go with the others.</p><p>They make it to the beach and Alex takes off barefoot through the sand, her jacket thrown over her shoulder. It’s kind of crowded, as crowded as a small town beach can get, though it’s still more people than Alex would have liked. When she spots the island in the distance, her skin crawls. She heads to the empty docks and stands at the edge, looking out at the water and the sun, the island in the distance. She doesn’t look right at it.</p><p>“Hey!” Jonas shouts, huffing as he catches up. He stands next to her, leaning with his hands on his thighs, catching his breath. “<i>God</i>. Why’d you take off? Jesus Christ I can’t— Oh man you run fast. You should do track.”</p><p>“You need to stop smoking,” she says. “You sound like you just ran a few miles, not a few steps.”</p><p>“Shut up,” he wheezes through a brief smile. “Seriously. What’s going on, Alex?”</p><p>She ignores the concern in his voice, the unasked question behind it. She ties her coat around her waist and pulls the radio out of the pocket, holding it in her hand gingerly. It feels heavier than it did before. Jonas stands up straight and stares at it, eyes wide. His eyes flicker from hers to the radio and back.</p><p>“I just, um. I never stop thinking about it, really,” she says flatly, trying not to let her voice crack. “I guess, sometimes, but… it comes back. It’s—It’s like, it just won’t leave me <i>alone</i>. I can’t move on.”</p><p>“<i>Alex</i>,” he says. The pain in his voice hurts to hear, and she turns her head away from him as tears well in her eyes. “I’m—I’m so sorry. The things that happened… they were awful. Really just, pure shit. I can’t forget them either.”</p><p>“I’m done,” she says, firmly. “I’m done dwelling on it. I can’t do it anymore.”</p><p>She looks at him briefly, then back at the radio in her hand. She reels her arm back and throws it as hard as she can. It sails in a smooth arch farther than she could kick a soccer ball (hah!) and splashes into the ocean, sinking on contact. She watches it disappear, and the hole in her chest doesn’t lessen any, but it does feel better. </p><p>It’s a start.</p><p>Alex sits on the dock and lets her legs dangle over and brush at the surface of the ocean. Jonas drops beside her and wraps his arm around her side, pulling her close. She buries her face in his shoulder and breathes him in—all pine and smoke.</p><p>“Thanks,” she says, stifling a smile; she fails. “For everything. Really.”</p><p>“Always,” he says.</p><p>And she believes that.</p>
<hr class="hr"/><p>She thinks she sees something in the ocean, minutes, maybe even seconds later, when it happens. Her gaze locks onto it, whatever it is. Debris, a buoy, something just far enough on the horizon that she can’t quite make it out. A headache graces her then, painful like radio static buzzing through her head, and she squeezes her eyes shut in pain.</p><p>When she opens them, she’s staring out at the grey fog blanketing the ocean, leaning against the metal railing of the ferry. The sun has only just set, casting pinks and oranges through the sky, and it’s going to get dark, soon.</p><p>And, and… she can’t recall what she was thinking about. A sense of dread settles over her shoulders as they get closer to the island, the ferry chugging slowly through the waves.</p><p>“Alex. Hey. Still with us?”</p><p>Alex frowns, her brows furrowing. She’s not sure why, but her head hurts; her forehead throbs, and she wraps her red coat tighter around herself. She glances over at her best friend and her new, <i>fresh as a daisy</i>, stepbrother. “Yeah, I just—Man, this is… Sorry, but this is all so familiar, like… I dunno, I just feel like you’ve said all this before.”</p><p>Ren laughs, and Alex tunes out again, unable to shake the feeling of déjà vu.</p>
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